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Old times

Manila 15th March 2012

Today was much in the sign of rekindling with old times, reuniting with people I used to work with many years back. When I say many I mean many…I am talking about 20 years and when you think back how much has changed in lighting world these last 20 years!

First of all computer and internet…we were still drawing our lighting plans on big professional drawing boards. We produced so many drawings at that time we sometimes did not know where to store it. Believe it or not but storing of our original drawings (A1 –A0 sizes) was quite a challenge in these days, certainly when operating from a small practice! The originals would be on tracing paper and kept as a master. For coordination we would go to the printer and print copies for the project team. Travelling with rolls of drawings was normal then. And now? We just carry a CD rom, maybe a few, but we pretty much are operating from a near paperless office.

Without computers our presentations would be done with presentation boards, pinned up drawings and sketches, mood photographs representing our design intent. Boards that would have to be carried to our meetings in heavy big black carry bags. On top of that we would carry a slide projector and have a whole tray of slides to illustrate our design. The amount of work going into these presentations many times over what we do now, using a laptop and our power point presentation. We illustrate our design through real life renderings which are of such high quality that “what-you-see-is-what-you-get”. Google allows you to find any reference picture you want…

In the really early days communication was by telex (some people still remember that?) and later by fax. But who still uses a fax? We communicate by email, sms, chat with Skype or have video teleconferences. Today’s generation cannot imagine life without internet and computers.

And then there is the unparalleled lighting technology development. From just incandescent and fluorescent lighting technology then to today’s LED technology. But that is another story, how times have changed.

Light Watch 3-37: I am on tomorrow, no escaping :). I will be using my laptop and power point to present my story, which will be a showcase on how far we have come with LED.